viva error, salsa harder

First entry: I found an interesting anagram of my full name and interestingly enough, it turns out to be an applicable title for this blog! VESH captures what my postings are likely to be about - the joy of learning new, albeit not always extremely important, lessons that result from doing unintended stupid things.


Case in point: it turns out my travel-drive can handle the wash, spin, and medium-heat cycles! After finding it in my clothes-dryer, I was afraid of plugging it to my computer, "could it possibly short-out my computer?" I thought. "Hmm, there's one way to find out." It turns out my computer is still working and my usb-drive is too! Makes me want to test it in the dishwasher. Viva error.

As for salsa'ing harder, I salsa'ed hard enough today - I attended my first salsa lesson. Besides a few basic steps, I also learned that salsa instructors can have stage-names! In my instructor's case his name led me to assume an entire battery of things about his dancing prowess before learning his 'real' name (to whom my check was to be made out to). Was I wrong for assuming certain things about my instructor based on his stage-name? Is he wrong for choosing a stage-name that implies things about him that are not exactly true?

I think it's an interesting question not only because of the set of stereotypes from which we both drew our presumptions, but also because of what it says about self-identity. Self-identity is, of course, relative by definition. Not only is it relative to the other, but it varies by context and over time. That is to say, you can have an individual that self-identifies as X relative to Y in context Z at time 1, but change any of those parameters and X's self-identity is likely to be something else relative to someone else, a different context, or a different time.

So, what's the lesson here? Don't presume that your salsa instructor knows or does not know how to teach or dance based on his/her name - it could be just a stage-name! ;-)

Anyhow, I learned quite a bit, although I do have to thank my sister Maribel for showing me the fundamentals. Thanks sis.

Now I just need a dancing partner...stage-name not required.